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No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)

I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...

I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

About Me

Torn away from the bosom of my family at the tender age of 18 - and never lived in my home town of Blackburn again. The RAF took me to HK; After a hitch of four years I emigrated to Australia and joined the RAAF, which took me to HK where I met my wife of 43 years. I then joined GCHQ which took me (us, with 2 children now) back to HK. Retired at 55, trained as a teacher of adults, gained a 2:1 in Teaching and Training at Plymouth Uni (which I thought went well with the 2 'O' levels with which I left school). And I've been teaching breadmaking ever since. Now running 6 or 7 classes a week, plus the odd Saturday workshop. My passion is breadmaking - or perhaps I should say the teaching of breadmaking; I'm also very interested in early development; And I like to cook - but I consider myself to be pretty average. I have a wife, two children, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law and three grandchildren, (who can all make bread) who come and stay with us in the holidays and half-terms. Away from my family, I'm happiest teaching a Family Learning group, with parents and children, none of whom have made bread before. I get a real buzz out of turning people onto breadmaking.

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Saturday, 23 June 2012

YEAST-RISEN (VEGAN) TEMPURA BATTER

Tuesday 19th June - update.Today I made another batch of these - and found the batter a little on the thin side. I halved the recipe and added 25g more flour*. This time I included slices of mushroom:

These are so tasty! Never having tried deep-frying food before I discovered this, I'm still amazed by how quickly everything cooks!

And it's not just the speed - half of these were enough for my evening meal! So a cheap meal as well as a quick one!29/4/12First time I've made these - and I was well impressed!

These are the leftovers - which didn't survive until the morn!

Battered sausages, etc:(Because I was in a hurry, I used about 50g of apple juice as some of the liquid. This helps the gluten form just that little bit quicker. And if you made the batter an hour before you needed it, you would only need half as much yeast as I did.)

Ingredients:

For the yeast batter

360ml lukewarm water

*200g strong white flour (I first made this with 150g of flour, but found it a little thin)

10g fresh yeast

Filling

One Linda McCartney sausage and one Fry's sausage - both of which are vegan. I cut each sausage into half, then split the pieces lengthways. I also divided a 1cm thick slice of Fry's vegan polony into 6 pieces.

Method:

Whisk the ingredients together and leave for 10 minutes.

I placed about 1cm of vegetable oil in a small saucepan, which I heated up quite hot. I tested it with a drop of batter and found it was done within about 15 seconds.

Using tongs, I picked up a piece of sausage, dipped it in the batter and turned it over to coat it properly, then placed it in the saucepan. I immediately slid a palette knife under the sausage to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pan. After 15 seconds or so I turned it over, gave it another 15 second, took it out and put it to one side. Then I fried the next piece.

These I kept warm on a simmering pan of curry sauce and had them with the sauce and some spicy wedges for dinner.

The ones in the pic above were what was left (this is a very filling dish!) and I made the mistake of just having one (cold) before retiring for the night. I have to say the rest followed pretty quickly. Even cold they were delicious!

12 comments:

These sound very good Paul.I've been following your blog for a while now, and you've inspired me to start making bread. I've given you a Kreativ award, if you want it. Info is on my blog www.cookbooksgalore1.blogspot.com.Am sad that the bbc forum will be no more.